Art doesn't come in measured quantities: it's got to be too much or it's not enough.

tasteful and colossal are - in movies, at least - basically antipathetic.

He [Bernardo Bertolucci] has the kind of talent that breaks one's heart: where can it go, what will happen to it? In this country we encourage 'creativity' among the mediocre, but real bursting creativity appalls us. We put it down as undisciplined, as somehow 'too much.' Well, Before the Revolution is too much and that is what is great about it. Art doesn't come in measured quantities: it's got to be too much or it's not enough.

If there's anything to learn from the history of movies, it's that corruption leads to further corruption, not to innocence.

Vulgarity is not as destructive to an artist as snobbery.

Really, it's not people who don't understand us who drive us nuts—it's when those who shouldn't, do.

Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again. If somewhere in the Hollywood-entertainment world someone has managed to break through with something that speaks to you, then it isn’t all corruption. The movie doesn’t have to be great; it can be stupid and empty and you can still have the joy of a good performance, or the joy in just a good line. An actor’s scowl, a small subversive gesture, a dirty remark that someone tosses off with a mock-innocent face, and the world makes a little bit of sense.